Alister McGrath in his book The Twilight of Atheism has an interesting chapter on the rise of modern science as a blooming of scientific egotism, with the conclusion drawn by the Romantics and the Victorians, that since science is so wonderful, who needs religion? T.H. Huxley, a biologist following Darwin’s theory of evolution, first coined the term “agnostic,” and Darwin himself had a hard time deciding whether he was Agnostic or Atheist, though he is supposed to have denied being an atheist.
Any artistic or intellectual discipline, once it comes into its own, is bound to develop a certain arrogance toward all other disciplines. However, hardly any discipline has been so proud of its pre-eminence as to divorce itself so entirely from religion as science has since the time of Darwin. But the sciences have led the way for the rebellion of other disciplines as well. It is now routine for almost all the art forms to scoff at religion one way or another, and this is because many artists have been infected with the diseases of our age.
Some think this collective arrogance is right and proper and long overdue. The error of this logic is transparent. History’s pendulum swings with decisive inevitability. It has swung so mightily in the direction of atheism over the last two centuries, that, as McGrath notes, the present dilemma for atheism is that it is about to confront its own inevitable downswing and the resurgence of interest in religion and the life of the spirit.
